but there's no denying that the tea party was given a set back with the defeat of people like allen west in the house and with various senate yol candidates. but romney was beaten with a tax plan not dissimilar from the one boehner is currently pushing which is we won't allow taxes to go up, but we will close loopholes and romney lost on that. so there is a sense that obama for the short term has won the argument. >> granted it's a huge issue, but how many people was this election really a verdict on their tax plans? >> well, the argument is that romney often polled very well on competence in the economy, but obama polled much better on understands the needs of people like me. so there's a sense that if it comes down to class and empathy, the democrats have momentum here and the republicans are on the back foot. so in that sense, i think obama has an advantage. on the other hand republicans do have a good case to make when it comes to taxes because something that's not often discussed is that the costs of obama care will start to kick in in 2013. one example, businesses which hire 50th n